Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former Cleveland Cavaliers assistant Damon Jones are among 34 people charged in connection with schemes involving illegal sports betting and rigged poker games backed by the Mafia, authorities said on Thursday.
Rozier is accused in participating in an illegal sports betting scheme using private insider NBA information, officials said. Billups is charged in a separate indictment alleging a wide-ranging scheme to rig underground poker games, authorities said.
Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former Cleveland Cavaliers assistant Damon Jones are among 34 people charged.
Assistant coach and former NBA player Tiago Splitter has been named as the team’s interim head coach, according to a statement released Thursday by the Portland Trail Blazers. “He’s like, ‘Why am I going to make this injury worse? The six defendants in the sports betting indictment include former NBA player and coach Damon Jones, current NBA player Terry Rozier, one of Rozier’s close friends. The indictments contain the description of several unnamed NBA players whose injury status and availability for certain games were the source of betting activity. Those details perfectly match how Lillard was listed on injury reports that day.Similar patterns were found with Lakers games involving James and Davis, with Jones alleged to have shared their injury information before it was publicly known.
Trusty said that Rozier had confided in several people that he was injured that night. I shouldn’t be playing,’” Trusty said. Two of the defendants portrayed themselves on Instagram as successful sports bettors and sold sports betting picks through their profiles, according to the indictment. Those players are not accused of any wrongdoing and there is no indication that they would have even known what was being said about their status for those games. For the Portland game, defendant Eric Earnest, investigators said, was given information that a player who had been listed as probable and then questionable to play that day would not play at all. In one of the cases, investigators said, Jones got the details wrong and caused some bettors who placed large wagers to lose. “The integrity of the game is paramount to NBA players, but so is the presumption of innocence, and both are hindered when player popularity is misused to gain attention,” the union said. “We will ensure our members are protected and afforded their due process rights through this process.“ In one instance, Rozier while playing for the Hornets told other he was planning to leave the game early with a “supposed injury,” allowing others to place wagers that raked in thousands of dollars, Tisch said.
